Solo Game: Twilight's Peak

[Mithras]

I'm hoping to recreate my success with this solo game: http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=14726&highlight=solo+game+best+ever

Has anyone played through Twilight's Peak as a solitaire campaign. I've tried trading games, but lose interest after a couple of weeks. I wondered if rumour hunting and planetary hex hopping might add a bit more flavour?

 

[mike wightman]

To cut a long story short - everyone dies.

In fact everyone getting killed was a feature of every early Traveller adventure.

Never had a party yet survive Kinunir, Research Station Gamma or Twilight's Peak.

But, to answer the solo play option, it is quite good fun to solo game the rumour mill of these adventures while conducting a trade game around the Regina sub sector.

You can also roll for patron encounters and resolve them using a variation of the NPC reaction table - roll 2d, add appropriate skills for the job, low result someone dies - roll a new character for that crew slot - middle of the road success break even, high roll earn reward.

 

[Mithras]

Thanks Mike! One thing I did consider re the patron job offers, was to roll the dice if the party decided to accept the job. The player (me) makes up a plan with my kit and crew. I give it a rating 1-4. Then I roll 1D6 to add. A 1 means someone got wounded, plus roll again. 2-4= Failure with a complication. On 5 (exactly) a success, just! On 6-8 a good success. On 9-10 outstanding success.

A crewmember with valuable skill can roll it, if 8+, add +1 to the roll.

(I figure this way I can get the fun of planning a mission, but without the weirdness of RPing through it)

To cut a long story short - everyone dies.

In fact everyone getting killed was a feature of every early Traveller adventure.

Never had a party yet survive Kinunir, Research Station Gamma or Twilight's Peak.

But, to answer the solo play option, it is quite good fun to solo game the rumour mill of these adventures while conducting a trade game around the Regina sub sector.

You can also roll for patron encounters and resolve them using a variation of the NPC reaction table - roll 2d, add appropriate skills for the job, low result someone dies - roll a new character for that crew slot - middle of the road success break even, high roll earn reward.

 

[hdan]

There's a similar system in MgT's Scoundrel book for doing heists in an abstract way. It works more or less like the way you outlined it. Without (hopefully) violating any IP rules, here's the outline of the basic system:

1. Determine the difficulty of the heist. Use this to figure out how many skill tests will be required to pull off the heist. An average heist should be something like 4-6 successes. In MgT, this number is expressed in terms of cumulative effect, but in CT you'll need to come up with some other method.
2. Preparation - Characters make skill checks to modify the "length". There is no penalty for failure, since you're only preparing at this point. You should prepare by gathering recon, intel and equipment.
3. The Heist - Make skill tests (stealth, gun combat, etc.). You can only use each skill twice, so no gunning your way through the whole thing, unless your preparations have reduced the length enough. Successes shorten the "length" and each failure making things worse. The third failure means you fail the heist. Once your length gets to zero, you win. (Note that for simple heists, it might be possible to be so well prepared that you automatically succeed. You might want to roll for a complication, depending on the nature of the mission.)

You're using CT, so you'll need to come up with a task resolution system that works for you. (MgT uses 2D-Difficulty+Skill Level+Stat Modifier, rolling for 8+ and counting "effect" as the number you go over 8 by.)

 

[Mithras]

Ha nice! I see why my rule reminded you of the Scoundrel system. I think that might be a bit too involved for me, but ... very neat!